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Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced final regulations for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students on Sept. 13, 2006.  The regulations are intended to help recently arrived LEP students learn English and other subjects while giving states and local school districts greater flexibility on assessment while continuing to hold them accountable for students’ performance under the No Child Left Behind Act.

The final regulations reflect the following major policies:

  • Define a recently arrived LEP student as a LEP student who has attended schools in the United States for less than 12 months.
  • Permit a state to exempt recently arrived LEP students from one administration of the state's reading/language arts assessment.
  • Require a state to include recently arrived LEP students in state mathematics assessments, and beginning in 2007-08, state science assessments.  Recently arrived LEP students must take the state's mathematics assessment, with accommodations as necessary, but states are not required to include the results in Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) determinations.
  • Permit a state to not count in AYP determinations the scores of recently arrived LEP students on state mathematics and/or reading/language arts assessments, if taken.
  • Require states that exempt recently arrived LEP students from the reading/language arts assessment to publicly report the number of students exempted for this reason.
  • Make clear that local educational agencies (LEA) are still responsible for providing appropriate instruction to recently arrived LEP students.
  • Permit a state to include "former LEP" students within the LEP category in making AYP determinations for up to two years after they no longer meet the state's definition for limited English proficient.
  • Clarify reporting requirements concerning former LEP students on report cards.

 

Final regulations, http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/finrule/2006-3/091306a.html

a USDE fact sheet http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/lepfactsheet.html and an eschool News article http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=6586 provide additional information.  

Posted: September 2006